them at that house,’ he said.
‘What house?’
‘The one on the cliff.’ His fingers hit against a stone and he started digging around it, working it loose. ‘We could go there.’
‘I’m not walking any more.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Ivor said. The stone was almost loose; he could nearly get his finger under it. ‘All of us.’ He thought about the lamps, the three yellow armchairs. He’d gone there again that morning and stood by the kitchen table in the strange, cool quiet, and thought something that wouldn’t go away. ‘We could stay there.’
Gull Gilbert jumped off the swing and staggered up behind them, his cheeks mottled almost purple. His tracksuit snapped like a flag in the wind. ‘That dog’s got itself a dead fish,’ he said. He dipped his hand in the bag of chips, then skipped away from Crystal’s fist. She was known for conjuring the blackest bruises. ‘Stay where?’ he said.
Ivor’s heart raced under his coat. ‘At that house.’ A hot feeling pushed at the backs of his eyes. If anyone asked why, he didn’t know what he would do.
Crystal finished eating, put her arms behind her head and lifted her hips until she was doing the bridge. ‘Like, living?’ she said. Her hair swung against the ground.
Gull Gilbert scanned the tideline, watching the dog’s owner chasing it over the seaweed. ‘Do you reckon that dog’ll eat that fish?’ he said. His eyes looked glassy and far away. Who knew what thoughts were teeming.
Ivor prised the stone out and clenched it in his muddy hand.
The dog started to eat the fish.
Gull Gilbert leaned forward, spat on his palm, said he was in, and shook on it, which was as binding as a triple-signed contract, amen.
When Ivor got home the light was on but his father’s shoes weren’t on the mat. That meant he was still wearing them, which meant he’d gone straight onto the kitchen sofa. Ivor went in quietly. His father was asleep under the scratchy blanket. Ivor had saved up for that blanket from the gift shop. It didn’t seem right that people could sell a blanket that was scratchy, to tourists, or to anyone.
His father murmured something and his cheek twitched. There was a scar under there from when Ivor was three and had bit him. ‘Is it right?’ his father said. ‘Is it right?’ He sat up suddenly, opened his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Christ, Ivor, how long have you been standing there?’
He reached out and pulled him down onto the sofa. It was soft and dusty, and Ivor sneezed, then sneezed again.
The fridge hummed next to his ear. Ivor picked at the fraying cushion threads. ‘Did you ring Mev yet?’ he said.
His father moved the cushion away. ‘You’ll tear it.’
‘Did you?’ Ivor said again.
‘These aren’t our cushions. If you tear them I’ll have to try and buy new ones exactly the same.’
The clock on the oven glowed red – you could see the shapes of all the other numbers behind the lit-up parts.
‘Don’t you want to be here?’ his father said.
Ivor looked around. There was the kitchen, the dark outside the window. ‘Here?’ he said.
Once, in town, his father had passed someone he used to know from school. His father had recognised the man, Jody, straight away, but it had taken Jody a moment to come up with Ivor’s father’s name. Jody had been down visiting his parents and now he wanted to go – he kept looking towards his car and nodding in all the wrong places.
Ivor had pulled on his father’s hand but his father had kept talking. About the state of the tides, what was biting, the blue shark, the development out the back of town. Remember that party out at the Jennings’ place? he said. Remember the ambulance?
Ivor had pulled again at his father’s hand, until his father let go. And still Jody kept glancing round and checking his watch, and nodding, until finally he said, I have to get back.
His father had run his hand down his neck and watched him walk away. ‘Back,’ he said. Then he’d shrugged and walked into the pub. A beer for him and a Coke for Ivor, and those chewy scratchings that were so tough and salty they made your teeth ache.
His father’s eyes were closing again.
His phone started to ring in the front room. It rang and rang but he didn’t get up to answer it.
‘The warehouse might be hiring next week,’ he said.
Over went the blanket with its smoky, ketchupy smells. Ivor leaned in and his teeth were against his father’s cheek, and his father’s hand came up and smoothed and smoothed, like he did with the fish he caught when they were thrashing and gleaming.
Ivor got to the house first. It was late afternoon and the sky was dark, the cliffs silhouetted like breaching whales. He’d told his father he was staying at Gull’s and would be back in the morning. The town glinted in the distance, supermarket floodlights bright as haloes.
It was raining and he put his bags down and pushed at the window. It didn’t move. He leaned forward and pushed harder. The frame was wet and heavy. It shook but didn’t budge.
He ran round the side of the house, tried the other windows, then rattled the front door. The rain came down in sharp pieces. He looked towards the town, then back at the house. He shoved the door, then leaned all his weight against it. Something gave and he shoved again. A gap appeared and he forced it with his shoulder. The door jolted open. The wood around the lock was spongy and on his way in he pushed the screws of the metal plate until they nestled back in place.
When the others arrived he met them at the front. Crystal was carrying a rucksack. Gull Gilbert had brought nothing.
They stood inside, too close, Crystal’s arm pressed against Ivor’s. She smelled like apples and petrol and she was wearing lace-up boots that reached almost to her knees, and a pyjama jacket with clouds on it. Gull Gilbert had slicked down the sides of his hair.
Ivor’s cheeks were hot. Everyone was just standing in the open doorway, waiting.
Gull Gilbert prodded Ivor’s bags with his foot. ‘What’s in these?’
‘Nothing,’ Ivor said. It was just the food he’d brought. There was a packet of crackers, cheese he’d cut off a bigger piece, half a carton of orange juice, a tin of soup, eggs although he had no idea what to do with eggs. Also three cans of beer he’d found lurking at the back of the fridge.
When he’d packed it, he’d thought there was too much – he’d almost taken out the cheese – but now everything looked small and awful. Any moment now, Gull Gilbert’s lip would twist and everything would crumble.
A handful of rain flung itself across the wall. Gull Gilbert reached out and closed the door. ‘We should get all that in the fridge,’ he said.
